Lately it seemed like AppleTV+ could only make great TV shows. After a lessimpressive start in 2019 with the messy but nevertheless quite popular TheMorning Show , the streamer hits almost every time this year. With theoppressive psychological thriller Severance the fun spy series Slow Horses_and the beautiful Korean family epic _pachinko as highlights.
Shantaram , which, like the last two titles, is based on a worldwidebestseller, has everything on paper to be added effortlessly to that growinglist of impressive series. A well-known actor in the lead role (CharlieHunnam, known for Sons of Anarchy ), a huge budget and the ability to tell alayered story in multiple countries.
Shantaram is an adaptation of the semi-autobiographical novel by GregoryDavid Roberts, which was published in 2003 and has already sold 6 millioncopies. Like the book, the series tells the story of Australian bank robberDale Conti (Hunnam) who escapes from prison in broad daylight in the early1980s and flees to India with a false passport. In Mumbai, at that time stillBombay, he becomes Lindsay Ford (the name in the passport) and tries todisappear into the chaos of the metropolis.
Something that he does very badly. Not even halfway through the first episode,he ends up – at the invitation of a mysterious but beautiful expat – in a cafethat he describes in the voice-over as a place where hookers, dealers,gamblers and gangsters sit side by side. Dangerous people who “could kill eachother at any time,” Linsday said. Yet he willingly associates with thesepeople, despite his own drug history that led him to rob banks, and theenormous guilt he carries with him for the latter. It doesn’t take long beforehe has to run again.
Two failed attempts
This time he ends up in the slums of Bombay, in the hut of his local guidePrabhu (Shubham Saraf). There he decides to use his medical knowledge (beforehe robbed banks, he was an ambulance worker in Australia) to help the poorresidents. A twist in the story that could quickly have gone wrong – white man’rescues’ poor residents of the slum. Fortunately, it is approached a littlemore nuanced, although the storyline does feel a bit cliché. A feeling thatthe series evokes on several occasions.
Ever since the book came out in 2003, attempts have been made Shantaram toget to the screen. After two expensive but failed attempts to make it into amovie, the rights were sold to AppleTV+ in 2018. But there too the filming ofthe book, which has nine hundred pages, did not run smoothly. After shootingthe first two episodes, production was halted in 2020 because the path takenwas too dark. A new showrunner, Steve Lightfoot ( Behind Her Eyes ), evenhad to be put on. Lightfoot claims to have started writing the script fromscratch.
The series that debuted on AppleTV+ last week does indeed feel fairly light,despite the heavier topics. Even though Lightfoot didn’t quite manage to keepthe twelve hours really interesting. After only three episodes, there aresimply too many characters and not all equally interesting storylines to holdthe attention. Even the fact that the muscular Hunnam – who really doesn’tshow bad acting here often takes his shirt off – can’t save things.
The series looks beautiful, as we are used to from AppleTV+. But it never gets